Belle of the Ball
by Bottle Red Rosie
Summary: A battalion of soldiers lost after World War II haven't seen a woman in eight years. Oddly, when they capture our heroes, it's not Lucy Preston they're interested in. Complete. Oneshot. Gratuitous Wyatt gropeage.


**Rating:** T

 **Words:** 6.400

 **Spoilers:** Spoilers of the vaguely non-spoilerific kind. Set mid-season 1.

 **Warnings:** Language, non-graphic adult situations, vague threats of non-con.

 **Summary:** A battalion of soldiers lost after World War II haven't seen a woman in eight years. Oddly, when they capture our heroes, it's not Lucy Preston they're interested in.

 **Disclaimer:** Everything is owned by someone else.

 **A/N:** So I appear to have discovered Timeless. And Wyatt Logan. And this would appear to be a thinly-veiled excuse to write some Wyatt gropeage. Don't judge me. There's also kind of a plot.

 **BELLE OF THE BALL**

So this was new.

The last thing Lucy remembered, she, Wyatt and Rufus had been exploring what they thought was a tiny uninhabited island somewhere in the Philippines. It was 1953 and she had no clue why Garcia Flynn would want to come here. But, as always, they'd dutifully followed, intent on stopping whatever nefarious scheme he had in mind this time.

Thing was, the history books—and by "history books" Lucy pretty much meant Google, as she'd had barely any time for research before Wyatt bundled her into the Lifeboat and helpfully strapped her into her seat—had nothing on the date or the place.

It wasn't exactly like she didn't know how to strap herself into her seat by now, of course. After all, she'd seen Wyatt do it enough times. But truth be told, she was kind of used to letting him do it. And to be honest? She kind of liked it. And although Wyatt could be a pretty hard read sometimes, she got the feeling he liked it too. She guessed it was the protector in him. Or maybe...something else.

But she wasn't going there. Because it made her head hurt. Especially every time she caught sight of the engagement ring on her finger and the pain in his eyes whenever he talked about Jessica.

So.

Here she was.

On an abandoned, uninhabited island in the Philippines.

Tied to a chair.

At least she was in a vaguely not-too-uncomfortable position.

Once she managed to get her eyes to focus, she quickly realized she was in much better shape than Rufus and Wyatt.

And wasn't that the oddest thing? Whenever she found herself coming around from unconsciousness in a strange place—which happened a lot more frequently than she really cared to think about these days—the first thing she always found herself looking for was Wyatt.

It was the protector thing, she told herself again. Just the protector thing.

Although she wasn't entirely sure he would be up to much in the way of protection right now, hanging from a wooden rafter by his wrists.

It looked kind of painful too. His wrists were already red raw from the ropes biting into them.

Rufus was off to his left a little, strung up in similar fashion, but the jacket he was wearing disguised any injuries much better than Wyatt's shirt sleeves did.

It briefly crossed Lucy's mind that Wyatt had been wearing a jacket too, but their current predicament seemed a little bit too pressing to waste a whole lot of time wondering what had happened to it.

Although it seemed to bother Wyatt.

"Didn't I have a jacket on?" he murmured, and he sounded kind of sleepy, the way Lucy imagined he would upon first waking on a lazy Sunday morning.

And thinking about _that_ pretty much led her mind to a screeching halt too.

He'd been the last to wake up when Flynn had kidnapped them in 1972, Lucy reflected. Maybe he had less of a tolerance to unconsciousness-inducing drugs than she and Rufus did.

And that seemed kind of hilarious, Rufus being a geeky tech guy, Lucy a history professor and Wyatt a supposedly tough as nails, testosterone-driven, Delta Force grunt.

Wyatt, Lucy knew, was neither testosterone-driven nor a grunt, but she did have a sneaking suspicion he could be tough as nails when he wanted to be.

Still. She and Rufus both woke up before he did, twice now.

Rufus didn't appear to be seeing the funny side.

"Is that strictly relevant?" he asked, his voice taking on that edge of terror that seemed his standard default setting most of the time. "I mean, considering the circumstances?"

"I _know_ I had a jacket on…" Wyatt continued to murmur distractedly.

"Wyatt, we're hanging from the ceiling by ropes," Rufus snapped. " _Focus_!"

"I _am_ focusing," Wyatt returned. "On whatever the hell happened to my jacket."

"Dude!" Rufus continued. "Priorities! Shouldn't you, like, be figuring a way to get us out of this with a can opener or something?"

Wyatt blinked at him. "Don't have a can opener," he said. "Think it was in my jacket."

Rufus opened his mouth and closed it again abruptly.

"Boys," Lucy put in. "Both of you need to focus! Where the hell are we? What's the last thing you remember?"

Rufus' and Wyatt's brows crinkled into identical frowns.

"Lifeboat," Rufus said. "1953. Philippines. Grass. Trees. That's pretty much it."

Lucy nodded, turning her attention to the soldier. "Wyatt?"

Wyatt shrugged, as much as he was able. "I got nothin'."

Lucy sighed. Yep, totally lower tolerance to unconsciousness-inducing drugs.

"I think I remember guys with guns," she said slowly, squinting as she tried to strip the haziness from her memory. "Soldiers. Surrounding us."

Rufus blinked, his expression suddenly lighting up. "Yes. Lots of soldiers. In uniform. Old uniforms…"

"World War Two era," Wyatt put in.

"Oh, so you _do_ remember something other than your missing jacket?" Rufus observed.

"Yeah, I remember _their_ jackets too." Wyatt glanced down at himself, and he still didn't seem completely with the conversation. "And I swear my shirt was tucked in. Why's my shirt not tucked in?" he asked. "Were we in a fight?"

Lucy sighed again. "We're tied up," she observed. "So I would guess, yes, maybe we were in a fight."

Wyatt didn't seem completely convinced.

"I feel kind of weird," he announced instead. "Like I was...roofied or something."

Lucy had to admit, it seemed to be taking him a lot longer to get his brain into gear than it had her or Rufus.

"Granted, you maybe look a little more...disheveled than usual," Lucy allowed, "but we've been kidnapped on a supposedly uninhabited island by a bunch of soldiers who shouldn't be here and tied up in a basement." She was a little disconcerted it had taken her this long to realize they were in a basement. Maybe they'd _all_ been roofied…

Wyatt nodded. "Good to know," he said, and Lucy still got the impression he wasn't entirely clear what was going on.

But then, neither was she.

That was when the big wooden door to her left screeched open and a guy in maybe his late fifties, early sixties wandered into the room.

He didn't seem in any particular hurry, and neither did he seem particularly angry or upset with them.

"Sorry about this," he said by way of introduction. "We don't get many visitors. Had to make sure you weren't Japanese spies."

Lucy and Rufus exchanged a glance.

"Do we _look_ Japanese?" Rufus asked a little incredulously.

The guy smiled softly.

He was a big guy. Maybe six feet one, six feet two. Looked like he'd taken good care of himself over the years, although he had a bit of a paunch hanging over his regulation khaki pants.

Wyatt was right, Lucy realized. Definitely World War Two era uniform.

His hair was thinning a little, cut short and swept back, and he had a small scar above his right eyebrow, Lucy noticed.

"U.S. Eighth Army, ma'am," he informed her when he noticed her studying him. "Colonel Robert Masterson."

Lucy blinked at him. "Eighth Army?" she echoed. Military history wasn't her specialty but…. "Didn't you assist with the occupation of Japan in 1945? Why are you back in the Philippines?"

It was the Colonel's turn to blink. "Ma'am, we've been holding this island since 1944," he said. "We intend to continue doing just that until the Japanese are defeated."

"But...it's 1953," Rufus put in. "The war ended, like, eight years ago."

The Colonel stood a little straighter. "Hogwash," he said, decisively. "If the war was ended, we would have been told."

"You...you think it's still wartime?" Lucy asked gently.

"Like that Japanese soldier," Wyatt put in. "The one they found in 1974 who…"

"Wyatt!" Lucy snapped, and he abruptly stopped talking.

Lucy smiled innocently at the Colonel. "So...how did you come to be on this island?" she asked carefully. And how had Flynn known about it?

"Amphibious landing craft strafed by Japanese gunfire," he replied succinctly. "Myself and my men barely made it to shore."

"And you've been here ever since?"

The Colonel nodded. "And here we shall remain until we are discharged of our duty," he said. He glanced once at Rufus, then back to Lucy. "My men and I have made our home here. But...we're not used to visitors."

"Your superiors thought you were drowned," Lucy murmured. "They don't know you're still here…"

"So forgive our less than friendly welcome," the Colonel continued. "You three are only the second lot of outsiders we've seen since we landed here."

"Second?"

"Damnedest thing. Another fellow showed up this very morning."

"Tall, dark hair, European accent?" Wyatt hazarded.

The Colonel regarded him for a second. "He was talking poppycock too."

"Where is he?" Lucy asked.

The Colonel shrugged. "Still deciding what to do with him."

"And what have you decided to do with us?" Rufus asked slowly.

"Well," the Colonel began, glancing at Lucy. "We haven't seen a woman for a very long time—"

"Hey, don't even—" Wyatt immediately started to warn the guy, and Lucy was kind of flattered it had taken a vague threat to her wellbeing to immediately snap him out of his confused haze.

The Colonel glanced from Lucy to Wyatt and back to Lucy again, and it was only then Lucy noticed the vaguely lascivious grin suddenly appear on his face.

She swallowed. Okay. All-male battalion of soldiers apparently completely starved of female companionship for the last eight years. Not a problem.

"It's nice to get visitors," the Colonel continued. "And, luckily, we seem to have found ourselves a new belle of the ball, so to speak."

"Hey!" Wyatt renewed his protests. "Don't you even think about touching her—"

The Colonel frowned, his attention returning to Wyatt, as he made his way slowly across the room towards him. "Oh, I wasn't talking about her, son," he said, casually reaching out his left hand and tracing his thumb across Wyatt's cheekbone.

And that was when all of the air suddenly seemed to be sucked out of the room.

"Oh crap," Rufus muttered.

"Wyatt?" Lucy said slowly.

To his credit, Wyatt didn't seem to react in any obvious way to what just happened.

Although anyone who knew him like Lucy did would have noticed his entire posture go completely rigid and his jaw tense so hard she was worried he might break his teeth.

Suddenly Wyatt's missing jacket and untucked shirt seemed to take on a whole new, decidedly more sinister, connotation.

And Lucy could tell the same thought just occurred to Wyatt.

There was a flash of barely-contained panic in his eyes as the Colonel's thumb became a palm laid gently on his cheek.

"You have very pretty eyes," Masterson observed, and Lucy wondered how many times Wyatt had heard that one before.

Although she doubted he'd heard it very often from another guy.

"Uh," Wyatt muttered. "Thanks?"

The Colonel's hand slid from Wyatt's cheek to graze his neck, then his chest, and finally came to rest on his hip, before he slowly started to circle round back of him, his hand never moving until he was standing right behind him, his lips uncomfortably close to Wyatt's ear and his arm wrapped loosely about his midriff.

Wyatt took a breath, didn't move, briefly closed his eyes and winced when the Colonel's tongue made the slightest contact with his earlobe.

"We've done amazing things in order to survive here for so long without contact with the outside world," the Colonel continued, as if nothing had happened and he was still casually discussing the status of his men with Lucy. The hand that had been resting against Wyatt's hip flattened into a palm pressed against his stomach.

Again, to his credit, the only observable indication Wyatt gave that he was in the least bit perturbed by what was happening to him was a slight grimace and an attempt to move forward which didn't get him very far.

Although Lucy couldn't see what was going on behind him, from the vaguely disgusted look on Wyatt's face she had a pretty good idea.

"Wait, wait!" she burst out, not entirely sure what she could possibly say that could get the Colonel to put a halt to what he was currently doing to Wyatt.

But he at least paused, the one hand still splayed across Wyatt's belly while the other made its way slowly down the inside of his arm from wrist to elbow to armpit.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, Lucy wondered whether Wyatt was ticklish.

Considering the position Masterson had him in, this seemed the least of his worries.

"Okay, sir," Lucy began. "We really didn't come here to cause you any trouble, and I'm sure you can see, we're really not Japanese spies or soldiers or sympathizers or anything else beginning with an 's' and the war really did end eight years ago, so if you could just see fit to let us go, we'll be on our way and absolutely will not bother you again unless you want us to go get some help for you so that you and your men can go home because I'm sure you don't want to be stuck here forever away from your families and your homes and everything you hold dear and I really wish you'd stop touching my friend like that because it's really not necessary and—"

"Lucy," Wyatt said quietly.

"—I'm sure _he'd_ rather you weren't touching him like that, because it's a consensual thing really and I don't think he's consenting and you really need to stop and—"

" _Lucy!"_ Wyatt said, a little bit more forcefully.

She stopped. "Was I rambling?" she asked, taking a breath. "I was rambling, right?"

"Yes," Wyatt confirmed. "You were rambling."

He grimaced again as the Colonel's mouth seemed to suddenly latch on to the back of his neck, tried to twist his head away, but again didn't get very far due to his arms impeding his progress.

"You know," the Colonel said from over Wyatt's shoulder, coming up briefly for air, "I've been wondering what I was going to do with you since we first captured you, but I think I might have finally made a decision."

"Oh goody," Wyatt commented flatly. "Don't go blowing the ending for me now, will you?"

Masterson chuckled a little, before starting to stroke Wyatt's hair. Which Wyatt really did not seem to appreciate at all.

"Well," Masterson said, "at first I thought I might let my men, you know, come visit with you. For a while. For some one-on-one alone time. You know, as a reward for their hard work."

Lucy's eyes widened, but not quite as much as Wyatt's did.

"Okay," Wyatt said slowly, and Lucy noticed something had shifted slightly in his expression, the way he was holding himself, like he was now completely awake and alert to what was happening and…might even have a plan to get them out of this.

But maybe that was just wishful thinking on her part.

"And suggestion number two?" Wyatt pressed, looking like he might actually throw up as the Colonel's fingers found their way beneath his waistband.

"My men and I…" Masterson began. "Well, for the last eight years, we've pretty much shared everything."

And if _that_ didn't stop Wyatt in his tracks, Lucy was pretty sure nothing would.

"Really?" And if there was a slight tremor in his voice, Lucy pretended not to hear it.

"So I thought, you know, maybe, share and share alike. Reward them all together. Make a night of it."

Lucy sincerely hoped the Colonel wasn't suggesting what she thought he might be suggesting.

Wyatt briefly caught her gaze, and from the look in his eyes, she was pretty sure he'd interpreted that in the same way she had.

Still, he was a professional and a soldier, and at the end of the day Lucy knew Wyatt could look after himself. At least, in a fair fight.

Wyatt versus a whole battalion of lustful soldiers?

Didn't sound entirely fair to her.

"Um," Rufus put in suddenly. "Exactly how many men do you have left under your command, Colonel?" he asked, and Wyatt glanced sideways at him.

"Thirty-two," Masterson answered proudly, and if Wyatt hadn't been hanging by his wrists, Lucy was pretty sure his legs might have chosen that moment to buckle.

"Only thirty-two?" he mumbled. "Well aren't I a lucky boy?"

Masterson chuckled again. "I'm a good commanding officer," he informed no one in particular. "I like to reward my men when I'm able."

"Good for you," Wyatt commented drily. "If only all commanders felt the same way."

"And how do I feel?" the Colonel asked, once again pushing up against him, and from the look on Wyatt's face, Masterson wasn't going to like the answer.

"I think I'll reserve judgement until you tell me what's behind door number three."

"It's quite selfish of me, really," Masterson said, moving his hips in closer to where he'd already got Wyatt pinned against his thigh while he moved his lips closer to his ear. "But I was thinking…I might keep you for myself."

Before Wyatt got the chance to weigh in with his thoughts on the subject, there was a knock at the door, and a young soldier who couldn't have been more than twenty-five stuck his head cautiously into the room.

"What is it, Private?" Masterson asked.

"Sir," the young soldier said, "the other prisoner wishes to speak to you. He says it's quite urgent."

"I'll just bet it is," Rufus murmured.

"I'm a little busy right now, Private," Masterson said. "Tell him I'll come speak with him presently."

Lucy briefly wondered whether Flynn had received the same treatment Wyatt was getting, and she wasn't entirely sure how she felt about that.

The Private ducked his head a little and removed himself from the room, and at that point Wyatt ventured to ask, "And what about my friends?"

Masterson frowned. "What about them?"

"If you decide to, y'know, keep me for yourself," Wyatt somehow managed not to heave as he said it, "what happens to my friends?"

"These two?" Masterson said. "I send them out."

"Send them out where?"

"To sea."

"In a boat?"

"No. In a casket."

Lucy sucked in a breath, and it was Rufus' turn to look panicked, although he wasn't as good at hiding it as Wyatt was.

"Wait," he put in. "You—you don't want to kill us! We didn't do anything to you!"

"But I don't need you," Masterson said matter-of-factly. "I have all the soldiers I need, and we have no need for women." He glanced at Lucy dismissively. "And I've got all the entertainment I could wish for." He went back to petting Wyatt's hair, and it seemed to be taking all of Wyatt's resolve not to take a shot at biting the bastard's fingers off.

"Okay, wait," Wyatt weighed in. "Maybe we can come to some kind of arrangement?"

And just like that, his whole demeanor changed again, from panicked, to pissed off, to…predatory.

And maybe even a little bit seductive?

Very slowly, he drew the tip of his tongue over his lower lip, and if the expression on Masterson's face was anything to go by, the movement had exactly the effect Wyatt intended it to have.

Lucy was pretty sure Wyatt hadn't learned _that_ in basic training.

"What did you have in mind?" Masterson asked, all his attention focused solely on Wyatt and his mouth.

"Well," Wyatt said. "We could help each other out here. You want something from me," he said, "and I don't want you to kill my friends."

"What I want from you I can quite easily take," Masterson pointed out. "I have you tied up in my basement, after all."

"True," Wyatt agreed. "But it depends _how_ you want to get what you want to get from me."

Masterson squinted. "Go on."

Wyatt licked his lips again, and Lucy was pretty glad she was sitting down as that phrase "weak at the knees"? Yeah. Suddenly made a whole lot more sense.

"Well," Wyatt said, "maybe you'd get what you wanted by forcing me. But maybe you'd get _more_ than you wanted if you didn't have to."

Masterson inclined his head slightly. "Like what?"

And Lucy wasn't entirely sure she was following the conversation anymore.

"Well," Wyatt said, "I might be less inclined to, for example, _bite_ if I'm not being forced to do something I don't wanna be doing."

Masterson considered that. "And if you weren't being forced…?"

"I might not bite. Which you might prefer."

Oh, Lucy thought. That's what they were talking about. Then she thought about it a little more. _Oh! Oh crap!_

"And if I let your friends go?"

"You might get what you prefer."

"In which case…?"

"I could give you a helluva lot more than you thought you wanted."

And right there, it occurred to Lucy the one thing she'd never expected to learn from Wyatt Logan was how to seduce a guy under pressure.

She doubted they taught _that_ in Soldier School either.

Masterson continued to gaze at the object of his lust for several seconds, and Wyatt stared right on back.

When the Colonel didn't say anything, Wyatt ventured, "You know, maybe you need a demonstration? In good faith?"

"Wyatt..." Lucy began to protest, but he silenced her with one look.

She knew that look.

Holy cow, he actually _did_ have a plan.

"What kind of demonstration?" Masterson asked cautiously.

Wyatt leaned back as far as he could, considering the position he was in, twisted his head and—Lucy hoped—whispered something in the Colonel's ear before pulling away slightly, catching his lower lip between his teeth and lowering his eyes a little bit as he did so.

The arm the Colonel still had around Wyatt's midriff tightened a little reflexively.

"You'd need to untie me first though," Wyatt said demurely, glancing up at the Colonel through lowered eyelashes. "Kinda hard to give the full service without my hands."

 _"Dude!"_ Rufus hissed in his ear.

Wyatt gave him the same look he'd just given Lucy, and he instantly clamped his mouth shut.

Masterson seemed to consider that. "This could all be a ploy to get me to untie you," he pointed out, and Wyatt nodded his agreement.

"It could," he said. "But you think I'd gamble my friends' lives on trying to overpower you, evade your men, and somehow get off of this island you've been stranded on for the last eight years?"

"You could be more interested in self-preservation than your friends' lives."

"If I was more interested in self-preservation I would have just gone along with everything you said you were going to do to me and not tried to make a deal with you to set them free."

Masterson took a long breath.

"If you try anything," he said, producing a very large, very sharp-looking knife seemingly out of thin air, "I'll kill her first." He indicated Lucy with a jut of his chin. "And I'll make you watch."

Wyatt swallowed, conspicuously choosing not to look in Lucy's direction. "Okay," he said.

Masterson hesitated one second more before reaching up and cutting through the ropes suspending Wyatt from the rafter.

Wyatt grimaced, rotating his shoulders a little, presumably to get some feeling back into them, but before he could accomplish much of anything else, Masterson had gotten hold of him and swung him into the nearest wall, keeping him pressed there with his own body while his tongue decided it was time to explore Wyatt's mouth.

"Oh God," Lucy breathed, and she turned away, unable to watch anymore.

Which meant she almost missed Wyatt somehow managing to get a knee between Masterson's thighs and an arm around his neck, spinning him around so that his back was suddenly flush to Wyatt's chest and the older guy's throat was in the crook of his arm. And Wyatt was squeezing. Hard.

Masterson scrabbled wildly at Wyatt's arm as his face turned first red then a weirdly mottled shade of blue, and whether Wyatt had forgotten he had that wickedly large knife or not, Lucy actually squealed a warning at him as the Colonel swung blind with it, which would have taken off Wyatt's head if he hadn't ducked in time.

"That," Wyatt said, grabbing the Colonel's wrist in the hand not currently choking the life out of him and slamming it repeatedly into the wall behind them until the knife clattered to the ground and skittered across the floor, "was not very friendly, sir."

Masterson's eyes were beginning to roll back in his head, and Wyatt continued to squeeze until he stopped moving altogether and landed with a thud on the concrete beneath their feet.

Wyatt went down with him, for a second lying across the guy's chest as he gulped in a couple lungsful of air.

The room went suddenly deathly quiet, and Lucy was pretty sure she could hear her watch ticking.

"Wyatt?" she said softly. "Are you okay?"

The soldier dragged in another breath before pushing himself up off the Colonel and back onto his feet. "Peachy," he replied, reaching back down to feel for a pulse.

"Is he dead?" Rufus asked, and Wyatt shook his head.

"He'll have one helluva headache when he wakes up," he said. "But he's not dead."

So yeah, Wyatt was sometimes difficult to read, but right then? The expression on his face was almost indecipherable. If he wanted Masterson dead, he certainly didn't show it.

He went looking for the knife then, rubbing at his wrists as he stepped over the prone Colonel.

Knife retrieved, he went first to Rufus, slicing through the ropes tethering him to the rafter and gently supporting his shoulders as he lowered his arms for him.

Rufus winced but didn't complain, figuring, Lucy guessed, that Wyatt had had a much rougher day than he was having.

Once he was sure Rufus was okay, Wyatt turned his attention to Lucy, crouching down in front of her before carefully sawing through the ropes at her wrists.

"You okay?" he asked quietly, and she nodded, the second her hands were free throwing her arms around his neck and hugging him like her life depended on it.

"Whoa!" he burst out, almost overbalancing and landing on his ass before recovering, returning the hug for the briefest of instants, and finally helping Lucy to her feet.

Maybe she'd read too many fluffy romance novels, but at that moment, Lucy wanted nothing more than to do that whole melting into the hero's manly embrace thing.

But Wyatt didn't have the time, instantly all business again as he took in their surroundings.

Didn't stop her hanging onto his waist though.

He glanced down at her as if surprised she was still there.

"I'm serious," she said in her most serious voice. "Are. You. Okay?"

Wyatt gave her his most reassuring smile.

Which she didn't believe for one second.

"I'm. Fine," he enunciated, before adding, "Ma'am."

"How did you even _do_ that?" Rufus demanded, coming up behind them.

Wyatt shrugged. "Nothing like the threat of gang rape to incentivize a guy."

Rufus swallowed. "Yeah," he agreed. "There's that."

"We really need to get out of here," Lucy said, only slightly overstating the obvious.

"Ya think?" Wyatt commented, managing, albeit gently, to detach himself from Lucy long enough to open the door a crack and peer out into the hallway beyond.

"You know what?" Rufus suddenly put in from behind them. "I think I'm offended."

Wyatt shut the door again while he glanced over his shoulder at the pilot. "Why are _you_ offended?" he asked. "It wasn't you they wanted to have their wicked way with."

Rufus nodded. "Exactly! What am I, chopped liver?"

Wyatt snorted and shook his head.

"Maybe they just prefer..." Lucy started to say, but stopped, glancing sidelong at Wyatt.

"Pretty boys?" Rufus supplied.

Wyatt rolled his eyes, and Lucy suspected that was a label he'd had to put up with a lot over the years. "Rufus," he said instead. "Guys in general are shallow, superficial asshats who think with their dicks. That's it. No mystery."

Rufus blinked at him, and so did Lucy.

"In fact," he continued, glancing over at the still-unconscious Colonel. "If that nutjob had done much more thinking today, he probably would have been able to drill a hole to China right through my spine."

Rufus thought about that for a second, before wrinkling his nose and murmuring, "Eww."

"Imagine how I felt," Wyatt agreed.

"That said," Lucy put in, "I think we need to go find Flynn and get him out of here with us."

It was Wyatt's turn to blink. "You wanna what now?"

Lucy shrugged. "Think about it. If you're these guys' type, then Flynn probably is too. You know he's not exactly hideous to look at."

"Hadn't noticed," Wyatt and Rufus managed to chorus in unison.

"Tall, dark and brooding?" Lucy added. "I think there's a theme running here."

"I don't brood," Wyatt protested, and both Lucy and Rufus scoffed. "I don't!"

There was a noise outside in the hallway, and Wyatt was instantly in soldier mode again.

Putting his ear against the door, he listened intently for a couple of seconds, before gingerly opening the door and peering outside.

Lucy tried to look over his shoulder, but got distracted by the ugly red hickey coming up on the back of his neck.

She grimaced. Lucky thing Wyatt couldn't see it.

He turned back toward her at that point, frowning at her. "You seriously wanna go rescue Flynn?" he asked her. "Bearing in mind my actual job is to put a bullet in his head?"

"Wyatt," Lucy said softly. "What that man was planning on doing to you... What he was planning on letting his men do to you... We can't just..." she trailed off, and Wyatt scratched at the back of his head, as if he could still feel Masterson petting his hair.

He shuddered noticeably, and Lucy inclined her head slightly.

"Please?"

Wyatt sighed. "I'm gonna regret this, aren't I? If Agent Christopher fires me again—"

"She's not gonna fire you. She won't even know."

Wyatt glanced over at Rufus, who pulled the Rittenhouse voice recorder out of his pocket and switched it off.

"Hardware failure," he said.

"Even you think we should do this?" Wyatt asked.

Rufus shrugged. "We're not monsters," he said. "We leave Flynn here with them, we're no better than Rittenhouse."

Wyatt shrugged. "Can't really argue with that," he agreed. "But if we find him having dinner in the officers' mess, happy as Larry, we're ditching his ass."

"Agreed," Lucy said.

"So okay then," Wyatt said, opening the door again. "Which way?"

Lucy squinted at him. "You're asking me?"

"I was a little tied up," Wyatt reminded her. "You were sitting near the door. Which way did that soldier go that came in?"

"That way," Lucy indicated right along the hallway, and Wyatt nodded.

"We ready?" he asked.

"No," Rufus replied. "Does it make a difference?"

Wyatt grinned at him. "Nope. Now stay behind me and stay alert."

Edging out into the hallway, he produced a gun from the front of his waistband and Rufus hissed, "Where the hell did _that_ come from?"

Wyatt shrugged. "If you're gonna get groped by some 1950s whackjob who doesn't know the war ended, you may as well frisk him for firearms while he's sticking his tongue down your throat."

Rufus nodded. "Words to live by, I guess," he sort of agreed.

The hallway itself, while probably only twenty feet long, felt like twenty miles as Lucy followed Wyatt toward the only other door visible in the direction the young soldier had taken.

It looked like another basement room, just like the one they'd been imprisoned in, and when Wyatt carefully pushed open the door, it was almost like deja vu.

Garcia Flynn was hanging from his wrists from a rafter running along the ceiling. Probably a continuation of the rafter Rufus and Wyatt had been strung up from.

He blinked at them when he saw them, and Lucy wasn't completely certain, but she was pretty sure he looked relieved. Except he tried to hide it.

He and Wyatt could probably give each other a real run for their money in the unreadability stakes.

"Fancy meeting you here," Rufus said. "Been hanging around long?"

Flynn grimaced. "Hilarious," he said, and Lucy couldn't help but notice he looked similarly as disheveled as Wyatt had. Except where Wyatt's shirt had just been pulled out of his pants, Flynn's had the bottom couple of buttons unfastened.

Wyatt noticed as well, and he just stood in front of Flynn for a second before offering, "I guess you met the Colonel too."

If Flynn was alarmed, he hid it well, just the barest tremor in his voice betraying him. "Did you kill him? Is he dead?"

Wyatt shrugged. "Don't kill people unless I have to," he said. "Or unless I'm told to." He considered that further. "Or unless they're dicks."

"He's a dick," Flynn pronounced. "You should kill him."

It was pretty clear to Lucy at this point that Flynn most likely _had_ suffered the unwanted attentions of the Colonel the same as Wyatt had.

"Did he—did he hurt you?" Lucy asked, and she could see Wyatt scrutinizing her out of the corner of her eye.

Flynn seemed surprised by the question. "Only my pride," he replied. "I suspect he was distracted by your arrival." He looked Wyatt up and down for a second. "Saved by the belle of the ball."

"Dammit," Wyatt growled. "Just as I was starting to consider not putting a bullet in your brain."

"You're the one he was talking about though?" Flynn continued. "To a couple of his guys? Not sure what they did to you while you were unconscious but you might want to get yourself tested when you get home. Maybe a tetanus shot. One of them said you tasted like apples. Is that true? Thought you were from Texas, not Georgia."

Wyatt shook his head as he whipped out the Colonel's evil-looking knife and grinned when Flynn flinched a little. "You're an ass, you know that?" he said, before proceeding to cut the ropes stringing him up from the ceiling.

He wasn't half as gentle as he'd been with Rufus.

Flynn grimaced as he shook off the ropes, rubbing first at his wrists and then at his shoulders. "Does this make us frenemies now?" he asked.

"No, I think it makes us idiots," Wyatt returned. "And how do you even know those guys were talking about me?"

Flynn arched an eyebrow. "Not to toot your horn, sweetie, but you know anyone else around here with 'I swear, the bluest eyes I ever saw, sir!'?"

Flynn actually did a passable Southern accent, but Wyatt just scowled at him.

"Look," Lucy said, "knowing what they had planned for Wyatt and figuring they were probably going to try the same with you? Well we couldn't just leave you here."

Flynn actually seemed a little bit affected by that. "Then I am perhaps in your debt," he said. "Temporarily."

"Once we're out of here," Wyatt agreed, "all bets are off."

Flynn nodded his assent, and took a step toward the door, before Lucy stopped him with a hand on his arm.

"What were you doing here?" she asked.

Flynn's expression turned once again to stone.

"Come on," Lucy cajoled. "We _did_ just defend your virtue after all."

"Promise not to tell," Rufus butted in.

Flynn sighed. "There was a rumor," he began, "that the Eighth Army had an A-bomb. That it disappeared with Colonel Masterson's battalion."

"But you already have an A-bomb," Rufus pointed out. "The one you stole in Vegas."

Flynn shrugged. "Never hurts to have a spare."

"But how did you know they were here?" Lucy asked. "I'm guessing everyone thought they were dead..."

"One survivor," Flynn replied. "That young man Masterson seems to use as his messenger boy? He was rescued when some wildlife documentary crew came out here in 1968. Rest of his men were dead by then. Cholera. He never said what happened to him, but I made an educated guess."

"And the A-bomb?" Rufus asked.

Flynn shrugged. "Got snatched before I could find it. Maybe Karl had better luck."

"Your henchman's here?" Wyatt asked. "Do we have to go looking for him now too?"

"I don't think they captured him," Flynn said. "I'm hoping he has my A-bomb."

"Not your A-bomb," Wyatt pointed out.

"Tomayto, tomahto," Flynn replied. "Now if you've finished interrogating me, I'd realły like to get out of here before the Colonel returns with his rape squad."

Wyatt shuddered. "Yep," he said. "Can't disagree with you on that one."

* * *

As it turned out, Flynn's stolen time machine wasn't parked that far from the Lifeboat, and as they approached his machine, his pasty minion, Karl, came running up towards them, his 9mm trained rather unkindly in the direction of Wyatt's head.

Flynn waved him to stand down, which he did only grudgingly.

"I really ought to kill the both of you," Wyatt commented. "But a deal's a deal."

"Where's the bomb?" Lucy asked.

Karl didn't seem inclined to tell her, so Flynn repeated the question.

"No bomb," Karl said. "If there ever was one, it's long gone."

"That's good," Lucy said. "Hooray for our side."

"Can I _please_ put a bullet in him now?" Wyatt pleaded.

"Down boy," Lucy replied affably.

Wyatt shook his head. "I am _so_ getting fired."

"Better than the alternative, man," Rufus reminded him.

"Yes," Flynn agreed. "That was...uncomfortable."

"Not half as uncomfortable as it could have gotten if we hadn't saved your ass," Wyatt pointed out.

"I suspect the Colonel was more interested in yours than mine," Flynn commented. "But my gratitude all the same."

Wyatt scowled at him, and Lucy pushed him in the direction of the Lifeboat.

"Come on, pretty eyes," she said. "Time to go home."

Wyatt turned his scowl onto her. "Don't you start," he said.

Lucy smiled her sunniest smile. "You're so easy."

"That's what I heard too," Flynn threw back over his shoulder.

"Asshole," Wyatt muttered.

 **The** **End**


End file.
